Like 1980, Again?

On Saturday, I joined Adam Cirucci and his fellow Vanderbilt University alums at Philadelphia's National Constitution Center where we heard a talk by Dr. Bruce Oppenheimer on the 2008 presidential election.
Dr. Oppenheimer is a professor of public policy and education at Vanderbilt and the author of numerous books and articles on the U. S. Congress and the democratic system. He's well versed on American political history. Here is some of what Dr. Oppenheimer said:

• Barack Obama is to Jesse Jackson as John F. Kennedy is to Al Smith (the Democratic presidential candidate in 1928 and the first Catholic to be nominated for the presidency). In other words, if Obama wins, he will complete the journey begun by Jackson just as JFK completed the journey begun by Smith.
• By any historical measuring rod, the odds favor the Democrats this year: bad economy, war, unpopular president, and people feeling the nation is headed in the "wrong direction."
• In the modern era, it's very hard for one party to maintain control of the White House for more than two terms. Since 1952, this has only happened once: in 1988 when Bush succeeded Reagan.
• Most polls nowadays are notoriously unreliable because people don't answer their phones (caller ID, etc.) or they have cell phones or the polls are automated ("robocalls"). State polls are even more unreliable and subsets of polls cover such a small sampling that they are unreliable as well.
• Presidential elections are decided by a preponderance of events and impressions accumulated over a long period of time -- not by any one single event unless the event is so cataclysmic (like 9/11) that it proves to be a real "game changer."
• Vice Presidential choices rarely make a huge difference in the outcome of the election.
• This election may turn out to be very much like to election of 1980 where the race seemed close until the final couple of weeks. In the end, people were satisfied in their own minds that Reagan could be president. They reached a level of comfort with Reagan and embraced change. The result was that he won handily. Once again, the new guy, the challenger, may prevail -- if he can finally close the deal with the American people, if they reach a level of comfort with him.

Having said all this, Dr. Oppenheimer would not flat out predict an Obama victory. But he invited the audience to "consider all the factors and come to your own conclusions. You don't need talking heads to illuminate you. You can read, pay attention, consider the facts and figure it out for yourself," the professor said.